Transcript

Intro Clip

Look, Todd and Janelle are dicks. But. I gotta warn them. Shit. You got a quarter? Hello? Janelle, it's me. John? Yeah. Is everything all right? Are you guys okay? Sure, honey. Everything's all right. Okay. Are you all right? Yeah, I'm fine. John, it's late. Honey, I was beginning to worry about you. If you hurry home, we can sit down and have dinner together. I'm making beef stew. Something's wrong. She's never this nice. John, where are you? What the hell is the goddamn dog barking at? Hey, shut up, you worthless piece of shit. The dog's really barking. Thought you were gonna tell the kid to get rid of that fucking mutt. John, honey, it's late. Please don't make me worry. Could already be there. Honey, are you okay? I'm right here. I'm fine. Are you sure? Are you sure you're all right? What's the dog's name? Max. Hey, Janelle. What's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking. Is he okay? Wolfie's fine, honey. Wolfie's just fine. Where are you? If was the Barons Are Dead.

Steve

It'S. Two Dads, one Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve, Paulo and Nic. Briana. Hello, everybody. It's another episode of two Dads, one Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are talking about Terminator 2 Jones Judgment Day. Nic, you picked this for us?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Give me. Let's talk about it. Like, why'd you pick it? Gee, why could you possibly pick this movie?

Nic

I know. Who's ever heard of this little underground Diddy? This movie was just so cool to me. I think it hit during the time where I was coming of age. Really appreciating, like good action. And the effects for the time were really groundbreaking. The main reason that I picked this is it seemed to have like followed me throughout my life. So in high school and middle school and stuff, my friends and I were into it. In college, like, we were into it. We were quoted a lot. When my wife and I got married, we got this Airbnb in Hawaii. And it was a place that had a beautiful view. There weren't really many pictures of the inside of the place. And when we got there, it was some guy's apartment that looked like it was Steven Seagal's apartment after he got divorced. Like, it was fully decorated with like sand samurai swords and all this like Japanese stuff. And it had an old school, like, deep dish TV. This is in 2017. So this is like in the plasma era.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And the only entertainment Options were a VCR and a VHS of Terminator 2.

Steve

That's one tape in the whole place.

Nic

My wife and I ended up watching some T2 on our honeymoon. So, you know, in addition to the action and the suspense, I think there's a lot of romance associated with this film.

Steve

Probably just for you two, I imagine. But yeah, yeah, I feel like for me, you know, this is a movie that obviously it was a massive cultural event this summer. It came out. It came out 4th of July weekend and you know, we were like 11 and it was rated R. But I'm pretty sure this is one my parents took me to see. I don't remember exactly why, but I feel like I saw this one in the theaters. Maybe, maybe they can comment to me and let me know that didn't happen. But, you know, it was really just such a big deal. Like every fast food chain had some kind of tie in to Terminator 2. Right. The music video for Guns N Roses, you Could Be Mine, Right. Featured a bunch of features from this movie, a bunch of scenes. It really was just. You couldn't, not. You couldn't avoid Terminator 2. Yeah. By the summer of 91, American culture at least was dominated by this movie. And so, yeah, it's. It's really interesting to. To take a look back at it. I'll admit I have seen numerous, numerous times both the original Terminator and this movie. And I have never seen any of the other Terminator movies. I know there are future Terminator movies that existed. I never saw any one of them. My entire understanding of the Terminator universe is encapsulated in these two movies.

Nic

So back when, before Terminator 3 came out, which I think was, I don't know, 2007, 2008, something like that, there was a promo picture in a. Like a People magazine with a shot. And the. The only picture I knew of it was a picture of Arnie with like a casket over his shoulder, like Single man pallbearer style. And then the other hand with the machine gun just blasting away. And I cut it out and I put it in my wallet. And it stayed in my wallet for like three, three years. And I would show anybody who. Who had the misfortune to be talking to me. So I was super pumped for T3. And I saw it when it came out and I can't remember a thing about it. I think it was fine, but I think you're good just existing with these two Terminators.

Steve

All right, well, let's get into just the facts on Terminator 2. I already kind of mentioned it, but it did come out July 3, 1991. So that big 4th of July weekend, running time of 137 minutes for this rated R film, Pretty long, but I think it's. It doesn't feel fatty. It definitely, like, has a lot of story to tell. It was directed by none other than James Cameron, written by both Cameron and William Wisher. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular Terminator and then Linda Hamilton. And Eddie Furlong, in his debut as an actor, received 91 on Rotten Tomatoes. So clearly a critical success, a critical Smash, and an 8.6 IMDb, which, if you know anything about IMDb ratings, anything over an 8 is. Is a tough to get. Yeah, that is a roaring approval by the masses who vote on IMDb ratings. Anything overnight. This movie won 39 awards.

Nic

Crazy.

Steve

I'm not even sure how many additional nominations it has, but it won 39 awards. The ones I'm going to mention is that it actually walked away with four Oscars on Oscar night in 1992. For sound, for sound effects, editing, for visual effects, and for makeup. And none of that is surprising. The movie was so far ahead of its time in those ways. In order to achieve those fantastic visual effects, they spent $102 million to make this movie and again in 1991. That's so much money. But it was well worth it. The box office take was over half a billion at $520 million worldwide for a 5.1x multiple on its budget, which is, by any possible definition, a massive, roaring box office hit. Yeah. So this we spoke with a couple weeks ago about Coming to America being the biggest box office success we've covered. It still is, in the sense of the. Of how much more than its budget. But this clearly is the movie that we've covered that has earned the most money in ticket sales over the course of its existence. So those are the facts on Terminator 2. Nic, you want to kick us off? How does this movie start?

Nic

Yeah, I really. So. So as we're getting into the movie, I think it does a good job. I think this movie, even though it's a sequel, you can watch this as a standalone because it does an extremely efficient job of kind of catching you up on. Okay, this is. This is where we're at. This, the future. This is why Sarah Connor is the way that she is. And the intro, as it's Just playing the theme music where it's showing kind of the. The playground becoming a wasteland, like a post nuclear wasteland. And this stuff hit really hard. This is something. Because you're so familiar with the movie. Sometimes the emotion of, like, what effect would it have on me? The first time consuming it is lost on you. But, man, I mean, it's some real, like heavy, heavy dark and the backstory of it. So I love. I mean, the score is incredible. And the way it gets into it, I had forgotten a little bit the scenes where it's showing kind of the flash forward into 2029. So there's a little futuristic battle scene happening, which I think is. It's a cool way to start the movie off.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Although it's. It's kind of a little disjointed from the rest of the movie. But it's important to understand, like, why anything's happening in the first place.

Steve

Place. Yeah, totally. I was so funny when I also kind of. I knew there was some sort of that. That prologue that occurred in the future. That part didn't surprise me overall, but the details kind of did. She mentions, you know, it's 2029, and I was thinking myself, oh, my God, that's coming so close. I wonder. We're getting there, right? And then, of course, we hear, no, no, Judgment day was actually 1997. At which point I relaxed a little. Okay, well, we. We clearly avoided it in this. In this particular timeline, we have our own shit we're dealing with. But, you know, one of the things I noticed when we first start off. So you've got that great moment I think everybody remembers, right. Where we're panning along the ground. Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor is giving us a narration, sort of like you said, setting the stage, reminding us how we got here. And then the camera sort of pauses on a single human skull. And then the T800, the sort of skinless Terminator, steps on it. And, you know, now we realize we're in the middle of a battle sequence.

Nic

Incredibly cool shot.

Steve

Absolutely. The first thing I thought of though is like, so do the machines. Did the mission. Did Skynet and its machines build polishing machines? Because all the metal is super shiny. Every helicopter, every. Every Terminator, they shine like they have been polished moments ago.

Nic

Oh, yeah.

Steve

And. And it is just such an interesting juxtaposition. All the humans look so dirty. Yeah. And so disheveled. And then these machines are just brilliantly sparkling.

Nic

It's like a fire station. They're just washing the Terminators whenever they're not out.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Yeah. So gets right into it. And kind of the behind the intro is just the playground, the burning playground, which is just really effective. And the music is so it really induces this sorrow and weight to it. Really great way that they kind of go through and spend a couple minutes on each of the main characters to start off very efficiently. And the first scene that we see of our Terminator, one of our Terminators, Schwarzenegger, I think the only effect that doesn't really look great in the whole movie. So he appears and there's kind of a electrical disturbance, a little wind, and then this sphere shows up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

The sphere itself does not look good. But the aftermath of the sphere, the fact that there's like a perfect sphere shape cut out of the surrounding objects and the ground when he emerges, just makes it look so legit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And I think that's an incredible job of dealing with like the limitations of the CGI at the time to make it look like, oh, okay, like this is a real thing here.

Steve

Yeah, I think, you know, we talked a couple a month ago or so about army of Darkness and Sam Raimi mixing effect types in order to get a really great result. And I feel like James Cameron, you know, from Aliens and the First Terminator and this does that as well. Mixing special effects and practical effects. Whether it's costumes, makeup, or this kind of environmental effect that clearly was like, you know, put in there. It was real. Right. Like they, they sort of had this tractor trailer and they, and they carved part of it out and it's like, you know, kind of thing and, and it really, like you sells it. It did make me think though, because the, the ground underneath the T800 is also carved a bit. Right. So it's like, man, I'm glad they didn't put him back in the middle of a mountain. Like, he would have been just kind of stuck. He would have had that little, you know, sphere around him and then that's it.

Nic

Yeah. What kind of visibility do they have into the landing spot?

Steve

Doesn't seem like there'd be much, but yeah, I do think that you're right. The, the sort of pulsing sphere effect is not great. The only other thing I'll mention, because most of the effects are fantastic, the other one I feel like isn't great. We see the hud, the heads up display of the Terminator several times. It's like a red thing with random. This. It looks kind of silly. We see, we get this very early on as he begins Searching for suitable clothing and, and transportation. Right. We're getting this HUD look as he walks up to this biker bar that he happens to have arrived near it.

Nic

Does the HUD look. Does look a little bit like Sewer Rat on Sega CD or something like that. One of those kind of those games that were so revolutionary at the time. Yeah. So now we've got, we've got Arnie. He appears and he's. He's nude and goes strolling into a biker bar. Right. Obligatory shots of women like looking him up and down and then stopping for an extra pace on the hog and being like, oh baby.

Steve

Like, why did they. Why did Skynet have to give penises to the T8 hundreds?

Nic

It's very strange the size of Skynet's company. You know that there was a whole like just penis engineering division.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So. So he obviously needs to solve this nakedness problem he's going through trying to find somebody who's a physical match and people don't like the looks of him.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And one of the best, you know, first lines of dialog from a character where he goes up to the toughest looking biker guy, he says, I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle. And. And this guy's not happy.

Steve

No, no, he's not accepting that.

Nic

He puts a cigar out on his chest, sees that Arnie doesn't react and then looks and then pushes the cigar in further like, oh, the issue was I wasn't pushing it far enough into it.

Steve

Yes, we need to Deeper, deeper cigar penetration into the flesh in order to get the effect we want.

Nic

This scene is so great. It's such a fun way to start the movie, especially with how heavy everything has been to this point. So it's like bringing the audience out of this like deep dark feeling that they have about 3 billion people being dead in the future. And then it's like, oh, it's a kind of fun like bar fight type scene with some good throwing guys around. Throw. Throw them onto a cooktop.

Steve

Yeah, that was good. I did think too, it was a really good introduction to, you know, sort of good T800. Right. The good Terminator that has arrived for this movie versus the one that came in 1984. Because while we do learn later, you know, in the interactions he has with John Connor, he's has to be sort of told not to kill people specifically. He also doesn't default to doing that. Right. Where I feel like The Terminator of 1984 clearly was just like walked in, found the first weapon he could taken off Somebody and just killed everyone in the room to get whatever he needed. Right. And. Because that's the most efficient way to sort of deal with it. But this guy is like, you know, he's obviously, he's asking for the clothes first.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Not being given what he wants. So he takes what he wants still. But then at the end, before he leaves, you know, the bartender or owner, someone comes out, you know, I can't let you leave with the man's ride, son. You know, shotgun. And he doesn't take it from him and kill the guy. He just takes it from him and takes his sunglasses.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And rides off into the night. And so it was really a kind of very good character study. We're saying, well, this is not the Terminator we all remember from just a few years ago.

Nic

Although at this point in the movie, I don't think that we know that.

Steve

No, that's a good point.

Nic

So that what Sarah says basically to set it up is there are like two Terminators. One is sent back to protect John, one is sent back to kill him.

Steve

I don't think she says Terminators. I think the wording is something about like, they had a chance to send someone back. They sent someone back initially to try to kill me. When. When. Before John was even born.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And now they're sending someone to get him now that he's a young kid. And in both cases, the resistance was able to send someone to.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

And so it is very safe.

Nic

Necessarily.

Steve

So. Yeah. So again, again. And I think you're right, not meant to know who's who at this point. And certainly, you know, I don't remember the marketing campaigns, you know, that went along with this movie, but I'm sure they didn't give away.

Nic

Sure.

Steve

Right off the bat, the trailers, et cetera, that Arnold was, you know, the good Terminator. Just that there were two Terminators that were fighting. Yeah. Because I don't. I don't think that was a surprise. That was well understood. And you're right there. We're. We are being left with the same uncertainty that the characters will have upon first meeting Arnold in this context, about who is he and why is he here, what's his mission? Yeah, that's a good point. But I just wanted to call out, as I was watching it, of course, with the sort of hindsight of knowing the situation, having seen the movie several times. Oh, look at this. This is an interesting juxtaposition.

Nic

Great way to set him up.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

And so he ends up with his motorcycle, his clothes his sunglasses and shotgun. And then he leaves to what I would say is the only acceptable use of bad to the bone ever. It could have been retired. Right. And it wasn't so trite at the time.

Steve

It wasn't. But God, James Cameron, such a boomer.

Nic

It's. Yeah, I think. Well, the original line had, you know, more George Thurgood in it. He was supposed to go into the bar and said, I need a bourbon, a scotch and a beer. Yeah, it is. It's funny though, but it's Such a making a 90s blockbuster movie type move, like where you need that reaction from the crowd. And maybe there's a cooler song and maybe there was a cool Guns N Roses song that it could have been.

Steve

Right.

Nic

But they picked that because, look, we're spending 100 million on this shit. We're going to kick George Thurgood 75K and the Delaware Destroyers 5K and we're going to use this damn song.

Steve

There you go. So we meet Arnold, we meet the T800. The next character we sort of introduced to, right, is the new Terminator. So another magical sphere shows up. Another person, you know, Naked man is in. Is in the thing. And. But in this case, there's already a cop sort of, sort of responding to some kind of, you know, disturbance, the electrical disturbance and everything like that. And in a very reasonable juxtaposition, we see Jason Patrick's T1000 character, character run right up to this cop and kill him. Yeah, right. And take his sort of visual identity. One thing that I just want to mention because it has always bothered me and it's like so sorry to the, to the man, Jason Patrick, but those ears have always kind of freaked me out. The man looks like liquid metal Legolas. Like, I can't. Like he's so elfin that it's just very strange looking. I never knowing how dangerous the T1000 is, is one thing. I never thought Jason Patrick was a physically intimidating looking actor.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

The way that Arnold was so intimidating looking in the original Terminator and in this one as well. But as the villain in the first Terminator, I never got that feeling off of Jason Patrick. And I think that was probably a deliberate choice of somebody who is like the liquid metal sort of, you know, version of a Terminator. He is more unassuming or, you know, more agile perhaps, was. Was the point.

Nic

But yeah, and, and that like, kind of creepiness of just how normal looking he was, just how average guy looking he was, made it, made it very interesting. Yeah. So liquid metal or, you know, whatever Jason Patrick appears. We. We know. And then. And then we go to see what John Connor is up to.

Steve

Right?

Nic

And John Connor is in his garage with salute your shorts star Danny Cooksey.

Steve

That's where he's from. I know.

Nic

And, you know, being disrespectful to his foster parents.

Steve

Right.

Nic

I do want to point this out. His foster parent, Jeanette or Janelle. I forget one. One is the actress's name. One is the character's name. I hate when they do this.

Steve

I know. Yeah.

Nic

She goes in to talk to foster dad Todd, right? Say, hey, get your kids straight. And what is Todd the scumbag doing watching fucking boxing on tv?

Steve

Tv. There it is.

Nic

Boxing on tv, baby.

Steve

End of episode. Good night, everybody. Yeah, it was funny. And I realized I'm like, man, I recognize Todd from somewhere. Where do I recognize Todd from? The. And then I realized, at first I thought that he was the actor who plays camera, the character's full name, but the cousin on the bear on tv, which is obviously not that actor because he's way too old. Right. You know, kind of thing. But he looks like that. No, he was in Air Force One. He was one of the agents assigned to Harrison Ford's detail in Air Force One. And that. That was something that was like, bugging me for a while. But, yeah. So we meet John and his buddy, and this is where. This is the first place where there are plot holes in this movie. I. Look, I love this movie. I'm gonna give this movie a good score and everything at the end of this. This is gonna be a great conversation. But there are, like, plot issues I have with the movie. And the first one is that by all accounts, the time frame of this film takes place in 1994. We know this in two ways. One is referred to as 10 years ago, when Arnold is recognized as blowing up that cop station, you know, shooting up all the cops in 19. The Terminator. And that took place in 1984. We know that they describe the. The events of Skynet being deployed and becoming self aware. Happened, quote, in three years. And then it is stated that it is on August something, 1997. So 100% positive this movie takes place in 1994. Which means John is like nine years old because his mother didn't get pregnant with him until 1984. So he is 9 or 10.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And that, to me, stretches the credibility of the character quite a bit. Like, I get that his mom has been preparing him to be this world leader, this resistance leader. So, you know, he's, she's teaching him things that a normal nine or ten year old would obviously never learn. But still, it's 1991. He's got a little micro laptop that he's stealing money from ATMs and he knows how to fix his dirt bike. And he, it made it a little hard to like accept everything because Eddie Furlong himself was 13 when he filmed the movie. The character seems 13, and that seems absolutely accurate to me. He's a young kid, you know, it's not like he's, he doesn't come off like he's 17 or 18 years old. He's a young kid, but he's not 9 or 10. Yeah, it feels ridiculous.

Nic

Well, and they never mention his age, so you got to really do the, do the math to figure out how old he is in this because they don't make reference to it. But that is a good point. He definitely is reading as you know, a very mature 12 or 13 versus a ridiculous 9 or 10. Eddie Furlong. John Connor takes off on his dirt bike with his buddy Danny Cooks.

Steve

He.

Nic

Screw you, foster parents. I'm not gonna listen to you. You're not my real parents. Then we're introduced to Sarah Connor.

Steve

Quick. Yes.

Nic

And we're in the mental institution where she's being held.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

The first shot of Sarah Connor. She's looking tough as hell doing pull ups in her cell.

Steve

And she's like turned the steel frame of her bed on its end. So she's got that. Yeah, pull up.

Nic

I love some improvised workout equipment, man. It's amazing what they do in prison because I have like built for the purpose workout equipment at my home that I never use. Oh man, I should get thrown in the slammer.

Steve

So much Bowflex in the garage.

Nic

So Sarah Connor's introduction with the doctors kind of talking about her is, is a great way to just kind of move things along. Like how do we. Because it's boring if you just have a character say, well, 10 years ago, whatever. So they're going between the doctors are talking. And then we're using some archival footage of Sarah in a, in a previous session with her, with her doctors and everything. And it, and it all builds up the plot. Even when John Connor is talking to Danny Cooksey, he takes the money from the ATM and he says, my mom taught me this. He's like, your mom's pretty cool. And he's just like giving. Sprinkling little bits of the backstory on it. I really, really like that, that ATM hack thing. Man, I daydreamed about that when I was a kid. That seems so cool.

Steve

I even had like a fair. Not that going back that far, but like in the mid to late 90s, I even had one of those really tiny, like, mini laptops or whatever. Nothing, you know, that could do anything like that. But it was a neat little tiny sort of like precursor to tablets, basically. It was kind of fun.

Nic

So now the doctor. There's kind of a more extended scene where they're talking to Sarah Connor and. And they're showing her this previous video.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Hey, this is the crazy shit you were saying a few months ago. And she's like, yeah, you know, I'm better now.

Steve

I'm all better.

Nic

I'd like to see my son and. Which she seems sincere, but it's a classic, like, manipulative behavior. She's very good at.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And she's acting very calm. No, this isn't real. It was never real.

Steve

Right.

Nic

They don't buy it. They basically tell her no.

Steve

Yeah. Like the parole denied, essentially. You know, you shoot and it wouldn't be parole. She was going to be. Get let out. It was just to be let to a lower security wing somewhere.

Nic

They'd even allowed visitors.

Steve

Exactly. And that has been denied. Which then has her blow up and jump for the doctor and make a great line about, you know, you're all dead unless you have like 2 million sunblock or something like that. Which is great. I'm like, hey, man, I only got 50 at home. This is 2 million I can get. But yeah, so we. That's sort of our indication that she. I really love this, this sort of kind of peek into her character because it shows us both that she is still very much aware that what she saw, what she knows to be real, you know, she is not wavering from that. We know that what she's said is real.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right. In the universe of this movie, she is correct. She is not crazy. So. But also that she is able and willing to be so manipulative. Right. Really is a very sort of strong character factor. Whatever character, personality trait for her because, you know, she knows what she has to deal with and she knows what she has to prepare her son for. And she knows, you know, all these things that she has to deal with. And I think that it's just really kind of very tactical. It's a very tactical look at her.

Nic

Like she's reformed her entire life to only focus on, like, keeping John alive, basically and preparing the future.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And. Yeah. Other than that, it doesn't matter. And she'll do whatever she has to do.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And good, good scene of her just lashing out at the staff and the fact that it takes like six. I mean, she's got away 115 pounds.

Steve

Like she's not right. But like 2% body fat, lots of muscle mass.

Nic

But they do have a lot of trouble with.

Steve

They do. That's true.

Nic

So I think now we are next scene.

Steve

We go to Cyberdyne. Oh, right.

Nic

We stop over glimpse at Miles Dyson.

Steve

Right. We need to meet Miles Dyson.

Nic

All.

Steve

We don't even get his name at this point, I don't think. But like, we meet Miles Dyson, he's at Cyberdyne Systems, they need to check out the thing to do some tests or whatever. And we learn the thing is, of course, the arm of the T800 from 1984, that after, you know, when that. When that machine, that Terminator was crushed in the hydraulic or the industrial press, it was reaching for Sarah Connor. Right at the time.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Therefore, the arm was kept intact and then saved. And that's how Cyberdyne sort of jumps ahead. It's. It's technology so quickly. I have an issue with this scene, though. There's so funny, like. Like, you know, Miles is told, you know, Dyson is told by this other scientist, hey, we need the thing. Okay, I'll go get it. And it's like he walks into what looks like it should be a clean room. It has like a ceiling door. Everybody inside is in full ppe, like, whatever, except he's in street clothes and the security guard is sitting there just in whatever, like his uniform. And I'm like, is this a clean room or not? Like, this seems like very highly sensitive technology being worked on in here. And yet, yeah, we're just walking in and out, whatever dust, doesn't matter.

Nic

One other beef relating to that scene going back to one of the awards that this won an award for, like sound editing sound effects did not. Like the sound effect of the guy with the lollipop. You can just make that silent. I don't need to hear this guy sucking on a lollipop in hd. That's not cool.

Steve

A lot of mouth sounds. A lot of mouth sounds. A little bit of a pop, I believe, when he takes out of his mouth too. Just unnecessary.

Nic

Definitely a misophonia trigger warning if you're into this.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Yeah. So. So now we know Dice. Now we've kind of. We've been introduced to the main players here in the film. So the Robert Patrick the cop Terminator has now shown up to John Connor's.

Steve

House at the foster parents house.

Nic

Right. And he's got asked for a picture. And now he's in his pursuit finding out where John Connor's at.

Steve

There is a moment that before he leaves that porch that I love the line that he and Jason Patrick's delivery is so good when they ask, hey, somebody else was here looking for him earlier. Does this have to do with that? And he goes, oh, him. Oh, I wouldn't worry about him.

Nic

It's so funny.

Steve

He delivers it so coldly.

Nic

He is, he is. You don't think of this being like a clinic in acting, but really to like be able to be so subtle and act kind of like 60% human. He does such a great job.

Steve

They both do. And I think maybe it comes a little more natural for Arnold only because he's always had something of a stilted delivery. Just his challenge with English language over his life, you know, and there's that Jason Patrick though. It's pure acting. It's all choices. Right. For sure. Not to. I'm not trying to denigrate Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting, but you know, for Jason Patrick, like this was something. Yeah. Robert Patrick. I keep saying Jason Patrick, isn't it? Who's Jason Patrick?

Nic

Jason Patrick is the, the leftovers guy. I literally have in my notes Justin Thoreau.

Steve

I literally have in my notes JP over and over again. So I full on thought this was Jason Patrick. Sorry, Robert Patrick. My apologies.

Nic

You're listening. Robert, we're sorry, we'd love to have you on.

Steve

But anyway, he really. It's a lot of great choices being made by the actor in order to sell this mechanical delivery and stuff without seeming over the top, without seeming campy. So.

Nic

And. And he's pursuing John and John is at the gallery.

Steve

The gallery, yes.

Nic

Which looks amazing.

Steve

He's got some cash going like in a mall with an arcade, with that.

Nic

With that game station Nicel Arcade in.

Steve

San Ramon with the sit in afterburner arcade machines. So good, man.

Nic

So. So he's there playing after burner with Danny Cooksey and the cop is coming and looking for him, asking various snitches where this kid is and they're all pointing him to it. I do love where he walks up to these two girls playing a video game and it's like a two second scene. But it's just exactly what I thought of girls playing video games when I was the age this movie came out is that they're like, oh no. And playing Just some super cheesy game. So they rat out John, and then John's friend says, hey, you got to take a hike.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Like, get out of here. And he goes into that back hallway.

Steve

Yeah. Well, it's great. Like, John's buddy, and this is the last, I think, time we see him in the movie, but he really does an excellent examination or excellent example of how I'm going to be teaching my kids how to deal with police officers who ask you questions in the future, which is shut the fuck up. Like, don't. Don't know. There's nothing good that comes from talking to a cop, asking questions. And this kid nails it like he's just like, no, don't know him. And just like, this is the buddy he rolled up with. I mean, it's totally clear that this is a deliberate choice. And he immediately goes to John. It's like, hey, man, cops looking for you. Just. Just bolt. There's back door. Go, go, go. You know, and he tries to even get in his way, like, hey, I think I saw you. That kid you looking for went that way. I mean, he does everything.

Nic

He does it right.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

He read, like, back that age, a lot of kids weren't readers. The most important thing to read was the novelty T shirt that had the Warner Brothers logo that said, if you see the police Warner Brother, it was a classic bootleg next to the Bart Simpson shirts.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So he knew. He knew what to do.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So now John Connor is in this back hallway of the mall, kind of running away from the cop.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And in his mind, he's like, I'm getting busted for the various.

Steve

Probably the ATM thing or like, whatever. Right. Could be anything. Yeah.

Nic

Having a dirt bike. The official. The official vehicle of crime.

Steve

And teenage dirt bags everywhere with their dirt bikes.

Nic

And then he runs into Schwarzenegger in the hall, who comes out carrying a box of roses, from which he produces a shotgun. Looks cool as shit.

Steve

Did he take a gun out of a box of roses? Oh, there's a band called Guns N Roses. Isn't there? Pretty important for this movie anyway.

Nic

And. And he just looks at John, says, get down.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And the other guy, who's just caught in the crossfires, decides that what I'm gonna do is act like I saw a mountain lion and make myself as big as I can, like, what the fuck?

Steve

Stretched out in the middle of that hallway for good reason whatsoever, and gets blown away by. By Robert Patrick, by the T1000. I'm just gonna keep on the T1000.

Nic

Yeah, that's that works too. Yeah. So. So we're treated to this great scene where Arie is protecting John Connor, basically allowing himself to get shot, you know, which is really cool. So you're kind of. You're. You're getting a glimpse into the imperviousness of these two and how it's like, it doesn't really matter if you're calling other cops or the army or whatever. Like, these are the only two that can kill each other, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And this fight that they have is incredible, where they're chucking each other into concrete and things are breaking.

Steve

Cinder block walls. Just. Yeah. Really incredible. Yeah. Through drywall, through glass, and just gives.

Nic

You a good sense of, like, what do you think the weight of these things are? Like, these things probably weight 900 pounds.

Steve

Oh, my God. At least. Yeah.

Nic

Seriously. Just such an exciting scene. And, like, if that's not enough, it. We move now the action moves because John Connor gets away on his dirt bike.

Steve

Yeah. He gets to the parking garage where his bike is. You know, classic movie moment, right. Where he struggles to get the bike started. We know he just had to work on it to get it going earlier. He couldn't start. Couldn't start. T1000 comes out of the door. It can't start. Cancer. But he gets it started just in time. And the T1000 gets onto a foot race. And this is the first of many times we see how freakishly fast the T1000 is. He is running at what must be 20 or 30 miles an hour at least.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

He has cheetah speed.

Nic

And chasing John down, it's a really effective way to make it a creepier character rather than him getting into a vehicle every time. Just that, like, in addition to all this, this thing can run, like, as.

Steve

Fast as a Fast. Yeah, that much more terrifying.

Nic

And he ends up. So Eddie Furlong, John Connor's riding away on his dirt bike. And then Robert Patrick, he gets this, like, kind of big rig, tow truck type thing.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Very cool looking vehicle for the pursuit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he's going after him. John Connor escapes to the. The aqueduct.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Eventually.

Steve

Yeah. The LA River.

Nic

And it seems like, all right, well, I'm good down here.

Steve

But he stops the bike like this. I never would have stopped the bike. I don't care. Here's the thing. If you're gonna stop the bike to try to figure out if you're still being chased, you gotta do it from, like, cover.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You gotta get somewhere where you're, like, able to hide at least a little. He's just in the middle of the aqueduct, the middle of, you know, the la river. And. And, you know, so he looks up and sure enough, that mack truck, or whatever it is Peter built, I didn't notice, Comes careening off of the, you know, sort of surface streets that are above this aqueduct. And now he. Now it's chasing him again. And look, I don't know that much about these. These trucks. I don't think one would keep driving after falling that far.

Nic

Unlikely.

Steve

But, you know, that's fine. Let's just keep going. So, yeah, just, you know, he's dry. He's still trying to get away. But the truck goes faster than the dirt bike. And that's not that surprising after building up speed.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

Luckily for. Unbeknownst to John, but luckily for him, the T800 has also caught up to the crowd at this point, Is now driving his motorcycle, his Harley, you know, sort of again, on the surface streets above the aqueduct, Looking down at the mack truck and the dirt bike, and does one of the coolest moves in any action movie ever when he takes the shotgun he has and he flips it over in order to sort of cock the lever action on it. And it is just the coolest damn thing in the world to flip that shotgun over and then shoot at the T1000.

Nic

And he's blasting out the locks on these chain link gates as he's kind of on a frontage, you know, next.

Steve

To the aqueduct surface access.

Nic

Yeah, it's a great. It's a cool setup. As opposed to him just being in the chase right away. It's just seeing him. Okay, there they are. The shotgun flip is awesome. Every the way that he reloads everything is so cool in this. And he ends up making another jump. Probably improbable. Survival jumping a Harley from 30ft up. You don't see a lot of stunt harleys.

Steve

Yeah, no. It's a very heavy bike. Yeah.

Nic

So now. Now he's in the chase and he's able to pick up John Connor and pull him away. Right as we're seeing the truck pursue, There's a scene where I think he takes a really good shot. I think drives under an overpass and just clean takes off the top of the truck. Really chilling. Really cool to see the liquid metal terminators pop up. Punches the glass out with one hand.

Steve

Just keeps going.

Nic

The look on his face when he's driving is just. It's cold but determined. It's just really, really cool. Arnie is able to get them away.

Steve

Well, he's able to, like, shoot the tires thing finally, or the wheels and actually cause the truck to crash. Which I remember specifically because there are a few moments in this movie, and this is one of them, where there is clearly a dummy being used to represent a person in a horrific practical effect sequence where, you know, even a stunt person who have been far too dangerous to have a stump person there. So there it is, a dummy of the T1000 that is sitting in the. The, you know, truck driver's seat as it crashes and explodes. And it looks very fake, but not that you could do it any other way, but. Yeah, so. Yeah, so then. So then we see that he just.

Nic

Walks out of the explosion unharmed after they.

Steve

And that's the thing. That's one thing I want to mention is like, so Arnold stops, you know, points the shotgun back. But it's like waiting a moment as this. As the truck is flaming, it's this inferno that started. And then, yeah, coming out of the fire is the all liquid. We haven't yet seen until this point what the T1000 looks like walking as a purely liquid metal form rather than Robert Patrick's actor's body. This moment, we gotta pause for a second because this was such a moment. This was. This was seeing the brontosaurus for the first time in Jurassic Park. Right. This was one of those movie moments where it's like, whoa, they did a thing.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like, this is not anything we've ever seen before. This is not like anything we've ever seen before. This is true. A quantum leap forward in either effects or movie making. Whatever has occurred and we're all witnessing right now, really, I think, like, of all the great effects in this movie, and there are so many, that moment of him walking out of the fire was so impactful.

Nic

Yeah. And it shows us, too, that we're dealing with a new kind of killer. Like in the theme of a killer pursuing the protagonist of the movie. This is something. Nobody's in cinema or real life or anything has figured out a way to. To deal with something like this so far. So, yeah, it really sets it apart.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Another great credit I want to give to the movie, which I'll keep doing, is just how. How effectively they are inserting these little bits of storytelling without stopping the action. And the way it's done here is now we have John Connor with Arnold Schwarzenegger driving away on the motorcycle to safety. And he tells him, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop. We're far enough away. And then you kind of get the. The dynamic of A kid asking an adult a bunch of questions. And it works so well to just explain matter of factly exactly, you know, where we're at.

Steve

He explains why all the kind of.

Nic

Technology works and everything. It's just like, perfect. That's. That's so good. So he tells him he's been sent from the future to. To protect him.

Steve

Right?

Nic

And John's like, all right, well, I gotta go get some stuff at home. You know, I got negative Mad magazines, I got some. Some Rolos that are gonna melt if I don't get them.

Steve

My buddy Lewis from the trailer park gave me some Playboys. I gotta.

Nic

So he said, and the Terminator's response is negative. You know, that he has the same programming as me. He's going to look to reacquire you there. And what he does is calls home to see what's up. So he goes to a pay phone and he's like, my. My foster mom is awesome. And Terminator grabs the phone and we find out he can do a perfect voice imitation, which then tells us that the liquid metal must also be able to do it, if not better voice imitation. And he's able to determine right away because he gives a fake name for the dog.

Steve

Right?

Nic

So he says, what's your dog's name? Max. He says, I hear Wolfie barking. How's he doing? Really funny that he's programmed to come up with a random fake dog name he didn't just bring up, like, oh, how's Brian?

Steve

You know, like it was an appropriate dog name.

Nic

So, you know, he pretty quickly realizes your foster parents are dead.

Steve

I wrote that line down, too. The delivery's so cold. Not. Obviously not that John had a lot of affinity or affection for these two, but it was still kind of like, that sucks. Yeah. Yeah. The adults that have been your adults for the last probably six months while his mom's been in Pescadero State Hospital, whatever, they're. They're dead now.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like, and if you weren't with me, you'd be dead, too. Yeah, right. Because you would have gone home and you would be dead.

Nic

And the way that the liquid metal Janelle kills Todd. So he's yelling at the dog and drinking milk out of the cart. Such an asshole boxing on tv. Milk out of the cart. And I'm surprised he lived this long.

Steve

And just ticking all the boxes.

Nic

Todd, such a good visual of the hand reaching out, making a kind of stabbing weapon that goes through the carton of milk and through Todd's back of his head.

Steve

When you get the sound first, right, because it happens off screen and you get just the sound of the, the sort of shoot, you know, noise and then also that crunchy wet sound. Yeah, we all know what it is. And then, yeah, like after he, she hangs up the phone, you know, we see exactly what damage was done. It is brutal, man. It takes to take a blade that big just through the mouth. But yeah, so that's, that's good. So, yeah, we get. So now, now we know that, you know, John and the Terminator know that John's foster parents are dead. And I think this is the scene where he sort of like starts talking about what, you know, what is the Terminator supposed to do? Like, right? He says, we gotta go get my mom. And he's like, well, no, you can't. But don't. You have to listen to me. And they get into this sort of thing about John giving orders to the Terminator, right? And this is where, you know, we actually just today as we're recording, released our episode on Coming to America. We talked about the, the bride to be at the beginning, lifting her leg and doing whatever she's told. Same kind of thing, right? Stand on one foot, do whatever. And the Terminator does. And so, but before that happens, remind me like, I know that, that he does something to John and John starts screaming about like, let me go or something.

Nic

Yeah. So he, he's basically grabbing John and John's like, let me go, let me go. He's like, why are you doing that? You're supposed to do what I say. He's like, you told me to. Basically you ordered me to get your, your 10 year old quote unquote ass in line here. And then there are a couple of off duty wrestlers who see them and Jim Brown decide to walk over Good Samaritans, although it takes them forever. So long, I feel like they're 15ft away. And then there's a whole 90 second conversation and then they're like just walking up.

Steve

Hey, something was happening a while ago. Is everything okay now? Like.

Nic

But basically the Terminator flips into Terminator mode because John, John Connor being a little shit.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

These guys that try to help me, he's like, take a hike, Bozo, or whatever. And. And then Arnie goes into Terminator mode and basically, you know, breaks a guy's arm and is ready to shoot a guy in the head. And John Connor jumps. What are you doing? You can't get. You guys, take a hike. So then he gets into a little moralizing with the Terminator but you can't just go around killing people.

Steve

Yeah, I do. Love. Before we get to that conversation, which. Which is a really important one because it does. Yeah. Teach the T800 like kind of the reality of his situation. You know, John says to the guys, like, oh, you know, get out here and like, oh, dip shit and go dipshit. Did you call moi a. And it's just so the. The random use of moi to me was always like so extra snarky and shitty of him.

Nic

But yeah, but so I did like that. And then, you know what I was saying earlier about this kind of kid asking the adult to get this information about the liquid metal terminator and all the stuff with John asking questions. Then it flips when he's telling the terminator, you can't go around killing people.

Steve

You.

Nic

Why? Because you can't. You can't just do that.

Steve

Why?

Nic

It's like, oh my God, dude, this is every conversation with a five year old that you'd ever have.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Really, really funny to. To flip that dynamic.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So now we're back in the asylum, right. Sarah had had a.

Steve

Well, she's being interviewed by the cops, right? Yeah. So the cops have seen that there was a video taken because somebody randomly had a camcorder in his hand because there were no cell phones with video cameras on them in 1994 or whatever this was supposed to be. And somebody filmed Schwarzenegger being thrown through the window at the Galleria. So now the cops have seen that there's a servants at the Galleria. Somebody's dead, right, the guy, the employee, whatever, was killed, and this guy shows up. And he's the same guy, right, who's on security cameras from 1984 shooting up a bunch of cops. This is a guy they've been looking for for 10 years. And so then they know that. That Sarah Connor is. Was related to that event as well. And therefore, you know, they come to talk to her and she's basically just not answering at all. She says thing, but she's able to procure off of the papers that the cops bring in a little paperclip. And it's enough for a woman with her skills and talents, a paperclip is a very versatile little piece of metal, as we find out.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, very resourceful. So Sarah Connor sitting there basically catatonic while everyone's speaking to her, they just assume she's. She's out of it. She's done. She's got her paperclip and she does a very cool. Oh, they. The Guy who puts her into her room. One of the asylum guards puts her into a room and straps her to her bed.

Steve

Such a creep.

Nic

And then he licks her face and then just kind of looks at her and goes, huh. Walks away. And then just to emphasize that this guy sucks. It's obviously like deep into night time, everyone's asleep and he's just slamming his stick up against every door and just, you know, he's gonna get it.

Steve

Yeah. I feel like there's always, there's not always. A lot of times elements in movies like this where we need to be shown just how shitty this like supposed bystander is. Right. Like we don't know enough about this character and don't want to know enough about this character to like really care about him.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But if he's about to die, it helps if our hero has to kill him. Yeah. To find out that he's a complete creepy. Dies later. You're like that guy.

Nic

Yeah. You don't want like gray areas to the audience, so you gotta let them know. Sarah. Then she spits out the paperclip undoes.

Steve

So good at Steph Curry. Steph Curry level shot to her own hand. Incredible.

Nic

Right? Because if she missed, I mean, that's it.

Steve

Yeah. One shot, one chance.

Nic

And with no. No shoes, no weaponry, nothing.

Steve

Right.

Nic

She's able to overtake. She gets into the janitor's closet. The guard discovers that mop handle's broken. And then she very satisfyingly beats the out of him handle. And now I think she's got his nightstick and his keys.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So it's just like a good. A video game. You're starting up with nothing. She's building her inventory as she's escaping.

Steve

You got to loot the mobs, dude. Like.

Nic

Yeah. And then at the same time, we know that the liquid metal is in the house.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

He has arrived cosplaying as the floor.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And gets stepped on by one of the guards. So I think as long as you have some kind of physical contact, you can take on the form of. Of another object or person.

Steve

Yeah. That was what Arnold told us as he was telling John Connor about it. Is that. Yeah, like anything he comes, comes into contact, any organic person, you know, matter, whatever he comes into contact with, he can take the shape of. It sounded like maybe not even organic. It was anything but. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so, yeah. So he's able to. So he sort of hides as the floor. The security guard walks over him, goes over to the coffee machine and gets. I think it was about a three ounce coffee. It was the smallest cup I've ever seen in my life. To which then he turns around and he's looking at himself. Yes. Because the T1000 has taken his form. And just the most brutal little finger point turning into a needle just through.

Nic

The guy's skull as it gets closer to his.

Steve

So bad.

Nic

And I. I kept meaning to pause and, and rewind and double check. He comments that he got a full house with his coffee cup. I feel like I saw Jackson tens on the cup and maybe a queen somewhere. Like something that would not allow for a full house. But you know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna beat it up too much for that.

Steve

This isn't rounders. We can. Yeah, we can let that slide.

Nic

This had worse poker than round, right?

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Sarah has very brilliantly. When she goes into the office, she basically is. Throws something to one of the guards who instinctively goes to catch it. And then she's able to dispatch and then gets a syringe full of bleach and sticks it in the doctor's neck. So she has a hostage now. Yes, and this is an important hostage who is very scared for his own life and telling everybody, do whatever, do what she says.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So she's making her way out with.

Steve

The doctor hostage, one of the two orderlies, by the way, I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Fear of a Black Hat, but it's a very funny mockumentary in the style of this, a Spinal Tap, but about a rap group.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

And one of the orderlies, the black orderly, plays a rapper named Tone Deaf in that movie. I recognized him. Watch. I'm like, that's tone deaf. It's tone deaf, look at that. But yeah, so. So, yeah, so she is, you know, sort of trying to get her way out by taking this hostage. And in meanwhile, John and the T800 have shown up. John, of course, reiterates like, you can't kill people. There's no killing. Like don't kill anyone. So he immediately walks up to the security guard at the gate and shoots him in both knees, I believe, right off the bat. And you tell, what are you doing? What are you doing? He turns, goes, he'll live.

Nic

So good.

Steve

Yeah, that's true, he will. You're right.

Nic

So Sarah is escaping at the same time.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And basically running from the guards, breaks a key off in the door, which is really cool. Very smart. Easy for her to do, but you know, she's smart, she's very strong.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then just imagine the horror. Like she's just been spending however much time of her life in this thing because of these recurring, they call nightmares. She calls, you know.

Steve

Memories.

Nic

Yeah, memories. And then the first thing she sees when she comes around the corner to the elevator is the terminator walking out. I will say I would have looked for a stairwell.

Steve

Right. Elevators are terrible choice in the emergency, but. Yeah, yeah. So he, you know, he. She sees him, she turns around, bolts back the other way. Of course. Then John comes out the elevator behind the T800, is yelling for her. She's coming, you know, whatever. And then, you know, is sort of like stopped because Everybody sees the T1000 showing up from beyond the. The gate that was locked behind them.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And sort of walks right up to the bar and then melds through it basically like, like turns himself liquid in all the right places to just sort of like move through. I think because the bars were purely metal, they weren't hollow. You know, there's nothing inside them. They weren't mechanical. Yeah, right. I don't know that he could do that through a wall or a door, but the fact that he was able to sort of like.

Nic

Because he could go around gaps for him.

Steve

That must be right. Yeah, exactly. While maintaining his shape. But yeah. So now he's through and. And you know, the. A gun battle occurs. Whatever. Right. And. And Arnold has to reach down to. To Sarah Connor. Be like, come with me if you want to live. Like, this is. This is your chance, you know. And she luckily trusts Jon, I think more than anybody. And. And they, they start heading out back to the elevator and.

Nic

And they get in the elevator. The door shuts just in time. The liquid metal then sticks a long, I don't know, kind of polar sword through which then separates.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And ends up with these kind of like praying mantis looking arms. Which just makes it so creepy. Really cool.

Steve

Almost like crowbar hands, sort of like.

Nic

So he's able to like stick the thing in through the crack and the elevator doors open it up and. And there's just stabbing, you know, things coming after him. And I think he ends up on the top of the elevator.

Steve

Well, he gets his wig split pretty bad by. By Arnold with the shotgun. You know, a shotgun blast straight to the head. Kind of splits open his head and we see the metal inside. But then, yes, they start going down in the elevator. The T1000 gets on top and is begin stabbing downwards through it. At which point he does cut Sarah. Like he definitely cuts there, which I thought was interesting. Because I didn't realize that so early in the movie. He can now mimic Sarah Connor. Right? Everything we understand about this now, he doesn't for a while. It's much later in the movie when he does, but he can now do that. He has come into contact with Sarah Connor so he could take her shape and her voice and everything else as far as. As far as the rules that have been laid out, for sure, at this point.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But basically, they continue to fight. They end up getting out before the. The T1000 can get through the elevator. They get into. I think it's a cop car is what they jump into, and they speed off. But of course, the T1002. Fast. Fast as hell. And he's still got those sort of hook arms or those like. Like crowbar hands. And he leaps after and is able to jump onto as the. Because they have to back up the cop car and then spin it around so there's that delay.

Nic

Right.

Steve

He's able to catch up to them and jump on and grab onto the trunk. And this is the second of the bad dummies in use, because as the car speeds out onto the street, there's a really bad rag doll dummy of the T1000 sort of, you know, sliding along the ground behind it. But again, what are you going to do? You couldn't put a person there, no matter who they are. So basically now there's a gun battle that ensues and, you know, they're basically shooting at the T1000, try to get it off of the thing. And Arnold finally uses the shotgun and is able to sort of separate its hands, essentially. Right. Shoot it to where it falls off. But now there's at least one, I think, still piece of the hook rattling on the trunk. And John reaches out and grabs and throws it, at which point, I want to point out the T1000 could now mimic John Connor.

Nic

Oh.

Steve

Because, yeah, he has come into contact with. Now he doesn't ever. And I feel like that's a missed opportunity. That could have been a fun, you know, thing or whatever. But. But yeah, he could potentially mimic either one of these main characters now just in this sequence, because he's come into contact with both of them.

Nic

Interesting. And. And the. The sound effects in this scene I thought were also great. I always remember the sound of the little piece of metal rattling on the truck, on the car. And then also when he's first taken off, when he shot the liquid metal terminators shot off the trunk. And he kind of rolls on the ground, but he still has the metal arms and you kind of hear the, this clang, clang as he's rolling away. It just. That kind of stuff really gets me.

Steve

Really earned that sound editing.

Nic

Great scene though. Just excellent scene. And now they've made their escape and they're in some kind of a, a closed like auto repair shop that they've broken into.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, they need to ditch the cop car. You obviously can't drive around in a cruiser for that long. You'll draw too much attention to yourself. And this is where we get a little more exposition, a little more, you know, understanding of kind of what the table 800 is. I think it's at this point and he talks about having a neural net processor because he's asked, can you learn about being more human? Can you learn? And he goes, yeah, basically everything I do, I learn. And I loved the term neural net processor. I never, I never really thought of it before this. But in the modern, very modern technology of machine learning and large language models, things like ChatGPT and you know, other kind of AI chatbots, neural networks are a major part of how that works. And so the fact that the term neural net processor was used in 1991 is so prophetically accurate to how we determine. And I really don't think this is a thing where, oh, we ended up calling it that because of T2. Like, I think it just sort of developed on its own is like that makes sense as a way to refer to essentially machine learning machines that can learn new behaviors or new, you know, sort of like personality traits, et cetera, or new habits. And I just thought it was really interesting that James Cameron was kind of so on the nose with that even, even back in 91.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. The science does hold. I mean, now that we're, you know, a couple years away from this nightmare future. I mean a lot of the stuff that is used in this film or referenced in this film, it's like, okay, like that's kind of the path that things took, whether or not, you know, we had the same consequences. But I think it was pretty sound like the reasoning behind that, it wasn't too fantastical. Yeah, yeah. So we got the story, the whole Cyberdyne backstory and what happens in 1996 or 1997. Cyber CyberDyne becomes self aware and basically realizes that we have to destroy humans.

Steve

Right. Because they try to basically they try to unplug Skynet, right. They want to try to turn it off. But Skynet goes into self preservation mode and launches the United States nuclear arsenal at Russia, at which, because it knew that the Russian response was an automated. Nobody could stop it. Like, their system was set up to automatically fire back upon the U.S. and obviously, you know, full nuclear arsenal, payload unloading between those two countries essentially destroys the entire world. I mean, it's going to survive from that. So, you know, the Southern hemisphere may be a little better off, but not by much.

Nic

And. And during this time, too, John Connor and the Terminator are kind of bonding a little bit. And it's kind of. It's sad. You know, John Connor's never had his father around his entire life, obviously, but also. And Todd suck, never had that good of a father figure necessarily, and is kind of talking to the Terminator, who's just an adult man who will listen to him, which is all kids want. A lot of times, you know, it's just like, will this adult just like. Like, treat me like I have some kind of value? And he's telling him about this history. And this guy my mom dated taught me this and I taught me that and everything, while also trying to make friends with them and teaching him how to use slang. Everything is really kind of cute interaction.

Steve

The slay, the slang teaching scene, it was a little cringy, but it's like, you know, it's. He needs to learn. We need that. We need the Hasselavista baby line later.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

So he's got to learn that somehow. And I think it does make sense. If John's even thinking if we're going to sort of pass as just people hanging out together. This guy can't be saying shit like, negative, like, you know, you got to be like, no, no problem. Or, oh, hey, that's okay, or, no, I'm not going to do that. You talking like a. More of a person.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

So teaching that stuff really is kind of a pretty. Pretty, you know, good, good thought process on John's part.

Nic

Right, right. And, yeah, and because John is very concerned because when John talks to him first, he realizes, like, yeah, this is not how anyone I know talks. So I got to fix this. They go to one of my coolest, one of my favorite affiliates in a movie that we've seen, Sarah Connor's buddy in the desert, Enrique.

Steve

Enrique, yes.

Nic

Arnold is introduced to him as Uncle Bob, which is really funny.

Steve

I love that Enrique clearly knows for sure this is not Uncle Bob. Like, you're not gonna tell me who he is. That's fine.

Nic

And Enrique, I guess he has kind of a dusty arsenal for them underground that Sarah had maybe set up for.

Steve

Herself, it seems like. Yeah. Like basically Enrique's got this land and no one else gives a shit about it in the middle of the desert in Southern California. Kind of, who cares? And so yeah, she befriended him and then was able to sort of. Yeah, probably I would, Wouldn't shock me if he, if she dug the, the, the armory into the ground herself. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, basically, you know, all the weapons she'd be able to collect over time as they are, they're being stored here. So now she needs a truck and she needs the weapons and she needs clothes and stuff and she's able to get all that.

Nic

Yeah. So he, he is getting her. They're there getting hooked up, they're getting the truck working. John and the Terminator continue to bond as they're fixing the truck. They're learning high fives and all that stuff. And, and Sarah's observing this and Sarah has a little mini monologue. Yeah you call it. Just talking about how this is, you know, the closest to a father that John's probably ever experienced, ever had, maybe.

Steve

Probably ever will have. Yeah. Because yeah, he'll never leave him. He'll never, you know, treat him poorly. He'll never yell at him, he'll never get drunk, he'll never. And there's all these things that human adult males would or could do that the Terminator simply can't.

Nic

Right, right.

Steve

Because it's not programmed to. I do love when John and T800 are looking through the armory that's underground, you know, and they're seeing, I mean, lots of rifles and weapons, all this stuff. And he finds both the, the rpg, the rocket propelled grenade launcher that will come in very handy later on, but also the minigun. And when the Terminator picks up the mini gun, the smirky gift is so perfect. And I wrote down, my note is like, man, this movie really is a video game game. This is just right.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

We just got the big weapon now, like, we're good.

Nic

So Sarah's a. She's, you know, understandably pretty isolated and she's just kind of hanging out at the picnic table and steam. Steampunk sunglasses. And it cuts to a scene where she is kind of falls asleep at this table and we see her nightmare sequence where she's at a chain link fence basically watching a version of herself playing with kids at a playground at the time that this, this nuclear disaster strikes. And it's, it's really horrifying. I mean the. Just showing the full effect of this and like in the micro sense where Everyone in the playground is getting incinerated and destroyed. But then zooming out a little to show like what's happening to a city and what's happening to this. And it's. It's really well done. You know, it doesn't go on for that long, but there's a lot of weight to that. I think it's. It's a great thing to put in the middle of the movie of just like, hey, this is a reminder for why we're doing all this.

Steve

These are the stakes. And it's a brutal. It's a brutal nightmare sequence. I do think it's interesting. It feels like based simply on the position of the sun in the sky from when she sort of closes her eyes to when she awakens in, you know, terror is the same like she's asleep for seconds. This is the kind of thing I think that what we're being shown is when she closes her eyes ever.

Nic

That's probably all the time.

Steve

All she ever sees it is. It is what is. Is haunting her all the time. It's incredibly brutal and. And such an interesting view into the character and of course informs her next move. Right. Which we find out is she's leaving without them, without John and. And the T800. She's going in. Enrique says, ah, yeah, he's, you know, she said head across the border. She'll meet you tomorrow. And they both realize, John and I think the T. At the same time realize she's going after Miles Dyson.

Nic

Right.

Steve

She. She's going to try to kill him because she thinks that'll stop everything. That'll stop the bombs, that'll stop Skynet, it'll stop everything thing. Whether or not she's right is, you know, debatable. Yeah, but, but, yeah, but she does head off to. To try to end Miles Dyson.

Nic

Yeah. And. And they do realize pretty quickly. So they know where she's going. And she is. Man, she is set up. She's got her all her ready to. She's got everything except for her aim and her patience.

Steve

Well, the aim is good at first because, you know, if. If Miles's son's RC car hadn't hit his foot and he leaned down to like, like deal with it, she would have gotten him right in the back of the head with a single silenced rifle shot and gone. And that would have been the end of it. But of course that doesn't happen. So then she just lights up the entire house with.

Nic

With destroys it.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And his son's RC car I think is Just, it's such a cool little device to add tension. It reminds me a little bit of, if you're familiar with Boogie Nights, the scene where they're at the drug dealer's house and there's the guy in the background who keeps just throwing firecrackers. That's just off. Off putting.

Steve

Where you're like, oh.

Nic

Like it's already a jumpy scene. And the sound of the shrillness of that RC car is just like, oh, like, what the hell is going on?

Steve

Extra tense. Yeah.

Nic

So she. Yeah, she shoots him up. And she does not kill Miles Dyson.

Steve

She could.

Nic

She shoots him.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And. And just at the right moment, John Connor and the Terminator come in here.

Steve

Right.

Nic

I will say Joe Morton, underrated. He's a great performance in this. And I wrote down he's the Michael Winslow of making distress faces. Yeah. Because he has a lot of crazy, like, really animation in his face. In different parts of this.

Steve

There are moments where he had a bit of a Denzel Washington look. The way Denzel would like, bite his lip. Yeah. And he very much looked like that. I did think it was a little strange that, like, I didn't kind of understand why she didn't just end him there. Like, she's already shot him. She's not in the home. I understand that the. The wife and son are there, but like, she got cold feet that weren't. Wasn't totally explained in my opinion. But that happens, I think maybe just the gravity of realizing what she's about to do, you know, whether it's fair to kill this person for something he hasn't done yet. Right. You know, and so then John and the Tea Hunter show up and. And this is the thing where I noticed this is not something I would have ever thought of in previous viewings of this movie. But, you know, my wife is a psychologist, and so I've learned a lot of terms over the years being married to her. And one of them is the parentified child. And this is an example of John Connor is absolutely a parentified child in that he is acting as Sarah's parent even more than the vice versa being true. I mean, she is freaking out. He is comforting her. You know, she's like, whatever. And he realized, of course, you know, that she's shot Miles Dyson. And. And. But. But he. The words that really sold this for me is when she. He looks at her and says, we'll figure something out. Right. Because that is such a parent calming, hysterical child thing. Look, we'll figure something. It's okay, yes, you know, that's bad. But we will figure something out. So he is so parentified. And it's just an interesting take because I can't imagine that that was something that. That was super conscious choice by the filmmakers in the sense that I don't know that that term was even really in use in the early 90s in the psychological community or not. But like, it's definitely something that, you know, is clear now in retrospect.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

This is a child that has been forced to grow up, has been forced to be a parent to his kind of unhinged mother.

Nic

Sure. Yeah.

Steve

And it was just an interesting look into John's personality in this moment.

Nic

Yeah, that and I guess another thing that he does here is he knows right away that when. When they're gonna have the Terminator kind of demonstrate to Dyson what he is, John knows to take Miles Dyson's small son. He said, oh, Danny, why don't you show me your bedroom, show me your toys. Nobody indicates that to him. He's. He just knows, like, yeah, I saw too much fucked up shit when I was a kid. So I'm gonna get him out of here.

Steve

100 this is. And again, I still kind of do have some issue with him being nine or ten as a character. But like, like, even so, like, we know this is a kid who had to grow up way too fast.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right. And had to. Whatever age he is, he's acting like someone five to ten years older at least, you know, and that's just sort of the nature of his being raised by. By his mother and what she knows.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. And so, so Arnie cuts his arm open and shows Dyson, hey, this. You recognize this shit? The arm from your lap? So Dyson accepts this pretty quickly. I mean, it's.

Steve

What other explanation is there?

Nic

Right? So it's really tough unless he is himself hallucinating.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It's really tough to dispute this. And he agrees that he's gonna help, right? And basically the way that he says he'll help is, oh yeah, I'll re. I'll retire early.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, I'll quit. Like, that's not good enough.

Nic

All right. Yeah. And then the next thing is like, I'll quit tomorrow. And then they're like, no, that's not enough. He's like, like, okay, and let's just go destroy the entire lab and all the work of everything. There's no intermediary step.

Steve

And again like, like just, you know, I have a background in software and engineering and I'LL tell you that is a very engineer's attitude about things. If there isn't like an easy obvious answer, then you just go whole hog. Just whatever the. Whatever the complete answer is. There's no middle ground. You know, don't, don't. Half ass, two things, whole ass, one thing. You know, like, let's just go ahead and do it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

I did think it was interesting too. I want to kind of take a second to talk about from the arrival at Enrique's desert home through to a little after even the our band of heroes arrive at Cyberdyne. I really found this sequence interesting because we don't see the T1000 for 25 minutes of this movie. It's a very long time that we were taken away from our villain, which I think is really great. It gives us so much development of the characters. It gives us these two very, you know, small screen time for both Dyson and Enrique. But incredibly important to the plot characters.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, nothing happens without either of these people doing what they do within the plot. And we don't need the villain for a while. And I think that's really cool because then when he does re arrive by showing up at the Dyson's house and sort of recognizing the aftermath of what happened there, it's like, oh, right, this guy's on their butts too. Like, you know, it's like it sort of like reminds us like man, he is there to get Jon and he's determined to do so. I just thought it was a really interesting thing to take us away from the villain for so long. Really paid off.

Nic

Well, there's kind of two villains. There's like the immediate threat of the Liquid Metal Terminator and the other villain is just. Just this dark future that's created by Cyberdyne continuing to exist. So it almost felt like at a point that, oh, maybe if they get this guy to. To delete all the shit off his computer, the liquid metal guy won't even exist anymore. Right.

Steve

Good old time travel paradoxes.

Nic

But they end up he takes them to the lab and they don't. They make zero effort to try to look normal as much as. So as much as John Connor is trying to get the Terminator to learn slang to fit in, he might be like, dude, can we stop at a fucking structure on the way here and get you, get you a sweater? I don't know, like you don't look like someone who should be getting a tour of a lab at 2am the.

Steve

Bullet holes riddling your leather jacket are Kind of a giveaway that this is like not great. But yeah, they very quickly sort of deal with the security guard because they just don't have time to screw around. And his initial, Dyson's initial, like, oh, I just wanted to show my friends, yeah, this enormous Austrian massive man, this like GI Jane and this little kid. I just wanted to show them around. And the security guy was like, dude, you can't do that. You know, you can't do that. So they sort of stick him into the bathroom, chasing the urinal.

Nic

If you were ever dispatching a security guard and tying him up, putting him in a bathroom, put him in the opposite gender bathroom.

Steve

Oh, there you go.

Nic

Ladies room would have saved him a little extra time. I think he would have been discovered, but it would have saved him some time.

Steve

Good point.

Nic

Who knows? Nowadays though, there's barely now stop. So yeah, they're, they're in the lab now and one of the security guards has discovered the other guy has been dispatched and he hits the silent alarm. So now the whole of LA county, everyone's coming, coming there and they're trying to rig everything to explode. Some barrels of some kind of accelerant. And they're going to, they're going to lab up, right?

Steve

And so, you know, the T800 is like, I'll deal with the cops, right? And so he goes to a window, blows out the window so that he's got a good view of everything. He's probably on the second or third floor, right? He's looking down the cops. Two things in this scene. One, first of all, just the whole standing with the Minigun, blowing things away. It's awesome. It's incredibly cool. Super awesome moment. It seems like the belt feeding ammo into the Minigun didn't move. I don't know if it should, but. Because I don't know that much about guns, certainly not mini guns that weigh 400 pounds or whatever this thing. But like, yeah, that's like. It didn't move at all. Which I thought was interesting. And then the idea that, that he could do. I understand, you know, he's a very talented Terminator. He's got all this like programming and stuff and he's trying hard not to kill people. But a minigun, look, the Fallout video games have taught me these are not particularly accurate weapons. Yeah, nobody catches a stray. Really. All these, you know, he's blowing up all these cars, he's shooting all this stuff all over the place. And not a single officer catches a single stray bullet from the, from the Minigun not a ricochet, nothing. Everybody's fine. He even does a scan in his HUD at one point. So like it's like a human casualty 0.0. And I'm thinking like the point 0 means there's not even an injury.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, right.

Steve

Because that's. It would be like, well, casualty 0.1. Like nobody's, nobody's dead. But you know, point, you know, one tenth of a percent of people have, have an injury. Right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Or something like that. And. But no, no, 0.0. It's totally fine. I just thought it was interesting, like, man, there's no way somebody's catching one.

Nic

Right. There's a lot of explosions. It would have happened once again hammering the point home. The Foley artistry on the minigun. So satisfying clinking when it's hitting the, the pavement.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

Oh God. I just want like a two hour tape of that.

Steve

The sound of the shells hitting the floor in front of him. Yeah, there's almost the slow mo. Where it goes a little more womp. Womp. Just the whole thing is fantastic.

Nic

And then when he. So, so he goes and takes care of the police and at the same time the cops are still working it their way in. They, they bust in. He's. It seems like, okay, we've taken care of the cops. Ready to go. Miles, you got the detonator? Let's get out of here. The cops bust in.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Miles is shot several times. Miles is shot and it looks very bad.

Steve

Yeah. Miles is not going to survive. And Miles knows that. So he's still holding, you know, the detonator or whatever he has. And he basically makes it clear by looking at Sarah like, you guys get out of here and I'll, I'll make sure this happens. Yeah. Or whatever. And he. I really have always loved the way that Miles Dyson. So first of all, the cops find him right after, you know, entering the room and he's holding like a heavy item over the detonator switch. Right. And he literally is able to muster up enough strength to say to the cops, I don't know how much longer I can hold this. And they realize what's happening, so they bolt. Everybody out, out, out. And they get out of there as best they can. And Dyson's breathing as he dies. I've always been so impressed with that.

Nic

I don't know if that stuck with me. It's always stuck with me.

Steve

I don't know if that's what it's like to die from being riddled with bullets in a way. That doesn't instantly kill you, but sort of essentially is bleeding out. Probably bleeding in his lungs or something. I don't know if that's accurate, but it's convincing. Yeah, he is very convincing. And one of the things I love that actor's choices in that moment I thought were just so powerful. And really you felt him die. I felt it in a way you don't in movies like this a lot.

Nic

Right. You didn't. It's not like somebody is shot and you just know that they're right.

Steve

They're just now on screen.

Nic

You get to see the entire process of this guy dying. And even, you know, the whole thesis of this movie is that there's this incredibly dark future apocalypse that is basically started because this scientist does whatever he does. So he's the architect of the nightmare future. And it's still incredibly sympathetic towards him and his demise.

Steve

Absolutely. Because in, in, you know, we recognize first off that he really. It's clear he had no idea what ramifications his work would have. Because once he has told them he is. He is scandalized. He's shocked. He wants to help make that not happen. And then our other introduction, you know, our introduction to him initially. Right. It's. He's a family man. He has a wife and kid who love him and he loves. And so there is no reason not to be totally sympathetic to Miles Dyson. So when he goes and he. And to die in an act of this, you know, sort of self sacrifice, I mean, look, he was gonna die from the gunshot wounds either way. But to make sure that his death isn't in vain, to do what he does, to make sure that that explosion still occurs and all that work is destroyed. He's a hero. There's just no other way to go. Miles Dyson goes from being the architect of the apocalypse to being the hero that avoids it. You know, potentially avoids it. We'll get go into that later. But yeah, so really fantastic.

Nic

Yeah. And, and so Dyson is. He's lets the detonator go. We got a big explosion. Arnie. Sarah Connor and John Connor are still trying to get out of here. The cops are shooting some kind of a gas like a tear gas in at them. Arnie, because he doesn't need to breathe, is, you know, takes care of them. He gets a hold of the cops gas gun, another great Foley artistry, shooting those things out and he ends up getting. Getting a truck. I think he goes out and steals a truck for them to get away in.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

At the same time the liquid Metal Jason Patrick.

Steve

Sorry.

Nic

Is driving a flaming motorcycle up the stairs.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Which is.

Steve

All right.

Nic

Little foreshadowing to the other greatest action movie in American history, Ghost Rider. Starting Lewis Cage.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

So classic liquid metal drives his motorcycle out the window right? Into a helicopter. He gets into a helicopter, he liquid metals his way through the window and in uncharacteristic fashion tells the pilot, get out instead of just killing.

Steve

So maybe he's learning too.

Nic

Maybe he just need a little more time.

Steve

I will say this is the. The SEC. My second favorite helicopter involved stunt in a 90s Arnold movie.

Nic

Okay.

Steve

True Lies. When he shoots the rocket through the open door of the helicopter to kill the bad guy. Oh yes, that's my favorite. But this was also awesome. The way he jumps kind of onto the helicopter and is able to get in is pretty fantastic.

Nic

Definitely. And. And so the helicopter now is chasing this kind of. I don't know, what do you call this, like a SWAT team truck. Like a big UPS truck shaped, but like a reinforced police vehicle.

Steve

It's a SWAT truck.

Nic

Yeah. And Sarah Connor hangs the bulletproof vests in the window to keep really smart, tells John, cover yourself in these bulletproof vests. And we get a cool scene of the helicopter chasing this truck. It's very tense. Sarah gets shot. It seems like it doesn't look good, but then the solution is that just Arnie slams on the brakes and the helicopter absolutely crumples into the back of the trucks. Like did. That should have been the first thing you did, right.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This whole sequence of between starting with the helicopter chasing the SWAT van and then they. Unfortunately, after the helicopter crashes, the van also the SWATMAN also crashes and they have to exit it and find another vehicle. At which point the T1000 gets a pickup or a cryo like. Like a liquid nitrogen filled tanker truck. And they get a little tiny pickup up from ball El Gall Gardening. I'm not sure what the reference is.

Nic

With the Praise the Lord bumper.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. And so they start driving. But this whole sequence, that. And then the chase involves the two trucks. This was that sequence that won the MTV Movie Award that year for best action sequence over the second dive skydive sequence in Point Break. So this was the sequence that ended up winning the award that year. We talked about it in the Point Break episode, but yeah, incredible. Just everything from the helicopter, it's so good. So much great special effects, you know, practical effects, explosions, all kinds of cool stuff. And it was so funny too because there's a stuntman obviously driving these Vehicles during the thing. And it really looked to me like the stuntman that they had for Arnold in the pickup was wearing like an Arnold mask. Like you fall on like a rubber mask on, like which is. It just looks so strange. Like, I mean, obviously you're not going to find a stuff. I mean, it looks exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, but it was just kind of so silly. It almost looked like Michael Myers because it was so mask like. But yeah.

Nic

Anyway, there are two of those scenes. And I know some, I'm not sure the version I watched, but I know some was kind of redone after the fact where there were more kind of obvious stuntman looking scenes. It was CGI to make it look like Arnold.

Steve

Okay, maybe that was so.

Nic

But I'm not sure which is which because I'm not sure the version that I. That I watched, but I did read that.

Steve

Interesting.

Nic

So. So they're running away in this crappy little truck that's so slow and he's coming after him, ramming them in this big semi truck. Arnie jumps onto the hood of the truck to battle him, which is really cool.

Steve

Fantastic.

Nic

Great scene there. And just the determination. There's no like, whoa, like any of this kind of action movie. It's just so matter of fact, like, okay, well now I'm gonna jump on this and I'm gonna just so casually just unload my gun through the front windshield of the truck.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And clinical. Yeah. So great. So it ends up being. Being a crash. We get a. Right, we get a crash here and liquid nitrogen spills everywhere.

Steve

Right. So they drive into a steel mill. Yes, Right. So because you can't have a Terminator movie without a steel mill in it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Or some kind of industrial, you know, facility.

Nic

Absolutely.

Steve

So they crash into driving a steel mill to pick up crashes, you know, John, crash. He's actually driving, I think at this point that actually crashes the car. And then the, the. Yeah, the cryo says like cryo something on the side of it. The big tanker truck flips onto its side and slides and whatever, breaking open. So now there's liquid nitrogen everywhere. And so, you know, the T800 and Sarah and John are like waiting to see what happens. The T1000 comes out and starts walking towards them. But because he's walking through liquid nitrogen and he himself is 100% metal, he starts freezing in place and he actually like steps forward and kind of of pulls his own leg off his own foot and is crumbling as he goes. Until of course, Arnold delivers. The famous line hasta la vista, baby. And shoots him with a single, you know, just. I think it's a pistol.

Nic

I would have liked if that was a bigger gun.

Steve

I know. Yeah.

Nic

Viewer. I feel like I. You had the mini. I mean, I know we used him for good purposes. Right.

Steve

He had the rpg, had the minigun, but yeah, just a single, you know, nine millimeter pistol. And he. And he blows up the. Basically shatters the guy, I believe. Right.

Nic

But a really cool scene. And the idea of somebody freezing and then being shattered to die will probably never be done again in cinematic history.

Steve

No, but. But it is cool because I remember watching this going, oh, right. And then like they late. And I thought to myself, oh, that's right. And later, the steel mill heat melts him back down. Whatever. I didn't realize it happens right away. He starts. The little pieces of him start melting and coming back together. And it's such a neat effect of these. It's almost like, you know, you think about like magnetic liquid.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Just keeps attracting to itself and whatever. And that's when they realize, you know, and normally the ta hundred says like, you know, we don't have a lot of time. So they, you know, I'm not really sure what the plan is, but they head deeper into the steel mill.

Nic

Yeah. If they're trying to get away, it does seem like there's got to be. How about the way you came in? Or.

Steve

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they were worried about trying to run past the T1000 as it's collecting and something bad happening like there. But yeah, it's. It's. We're in the steel mill now and the. And the fights are happening. Initially, the T100 T1000 are fighting each other as Sarah and John try to kind of hide the trailer to get away. And I loved it too. It made me think of another movie we've done the Fugitive, when our buddy Cosmo Joey pants takes an eye a suspended I beam to the face in the final battle there. And the T1000 is just pounding Arnold face with this I beam must weigh a thousand pounds. And he's just slamming him real hard. And it really does not look good for our hero Terminator.

Nic

And I love the effect of Arnold punching the T1000 and his fist just kind of gets stuck in him and then he morphs to where, you know, the hole in his body where the fist is, is now his hands and he's holding his fist. I think that was such a cool effect. Great fight scenes. Yeah. And Arnold is. He's kind of. He got his arm ripped off.

Steve

That's right here.

Nic

Little flashback to T1. Like, are we right back where we started at the end of this thing?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And at the same time, Sarah is trying to get John to safety. She lowers him down this chain onto a conveyor belt that looks like it was just dumping stuff into molten lava. And that was, like, the safe place that she sent him to. I would be like, dude, don't go to the. The bowels of this factory.

Steve

The whole concept.

Nic

Break room somewhere. Right. Go there.

Steve

The whole fact that they're in this industrial facility to begin with is kind of crazy. And then. Yeah. Like, the idea that you would consider any moving piece of the apparatus to be leading to a safe place. Why would you make that assumption? It doesn't make any sense at all. You're right. At some point, everything's getting dumped into molten steel, right? At some point. Yeah. So. So they fight a bunch. Basically. There's a point where the T1000 corners Sarah and, you know, has. Has stabbed her through the arm, like, through the shoulder again, which, again, is a nut. Now, this is at least the second time, right, that he has come into contact with Sarah and he says, call John. Call John now. And she won't. She's being silent. Whatever. That's when the T1, the T800, comes back after having his arm ripped off and kind of attacks the T1000 again. Actually, I think we skipped over the part where it looked like the T1000 kills the T800. You know, he kills Arnold's character. His little eye, you know, goes from red, goes out, whatever. But, like, for some wonderful reason, alternate power turns on, like. Like Grigg saving the. The gun star in Last Starfighter. Just a little extra power. No big deal. And so he's back, and he's got this big steel beam. And I love the way that he just splits it right through. Right through him so hard and just splits him in half with this metal bar.

Nic

Yeah. That was incredible. Who knew the inanimate carbon rod would be the MVP of this fight scene? But, yeah, so great. And. And he's back to life now. So Sarah's basically being. She's in it with the liquid metal guy, and she's got her shotgun, right? And he's, like, right at the edge of the molten lava, and she shoots him. And he kind of takes a step back and she shoots him. And right when it looks like she's one shot away. Yeah, he's.

Steve

He's out of. Well, she's out of ammo. Right. And it's just. Yeah, she, she. And she's having to sort of cock this thing with one arm because the way that you. He stabbed her, she can't use like her left hand. She's trying to do everything with the right hand. It's incredibly difficult. And it looks like she's done for. At which point, coming up over some other gear, I guess is our. Our hero, Terminator. He's got one shot left in his RPG, launches it straight into the T1000. Who kind of pauses as it enters him.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

But then realizes, oh, no. And it explodes. And I thought I wrote this down. I thought he looked exactly like something out of John Carpenter's the Thing when this happens. He's just so bizarre looking.

Nic

It's such a wrap around it.

Steve

Oh, man, it's amazing.

Nic

It's like this monster bug alien looking thing. And the sounds that it starts to make, you know, it's like it loses pretense of humanity. So, yeah, it's. It's totally torn apart and then boom.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Into the liquid, into the molten steel. Boiling. Yeah, whatever the.

Steve

It is very hot stuff.

Nic

And. And during the, the death of the liquid metal, we see these different faces kind of emerge from the molten steel of the different faces of things that he's impersonated.

Steve

Right.

Nic

I guess.

Steve

Interesting.

Nic

Although the checkered floor didn't show up.

Steve

No, it didn't. But that's.

Nic

But just the. Just the humans.

Steve

We definitely saw. Yeah. Several people we recognized from earlier in the film.

Nic

But yeah, it was kind of cool. Almost just like releasing these souls that it had stolen while he was interesting impersonating them or something.

Steve

That's cool.

Nic

Yeah, so, yeah, really cool. And it seems like everything has been wrapped up into a neat little package and our three heroes can go live their life.

Steve

Well, no, we have to destroy the stuff that John brought with them. Right. So John's got the, the arm and the chip from Cyberdyne that he and Miles are able to grab. And so he asks, he has the T800. Like, if I throw this in there, that'll take care of it. Right? Like he's like, oh, yeah, that'll be it. So just like, you know, dropping the one ring into Mount Doom, these people are tossing these artifacts into the molten lava. And again, John's like, yeah, we're done. At which point the T800 reminds him, Nope, there's still one more chip. It's in my head. And so he needs to sort of do it. But he can't. I can't self terminate. So he hands the remote control for the lever for this, like, hook. He's on over to Sarah and she lowers him into the. The molten lava. Oh, no. I do love the line here. It's like, I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do. God, it's such a good but. Yeah. So he's lowered down and then he's gone.

Nic

And the thumbs up as he's going under. He gives us thumbs up.

Steve

Yeah. It does bear mentioning, though. That's not all that's there. There's still an arm somewhere in this facility.

Nic

So we're where we are where we were, kind of.

Steve

But. Okay, this is. This is where I kind of really had an issue with the movie. The T800 doesn't think, oh, I left my arm behind. Sarah doesn't think you're missing an arm. Like. Like. I get that John maybe wouldn't think of it. He's a kid and he's not. But. But both Sarah and the Terminator itself know goddamn well that one of the reasons that everything came to a head is because cyberdyne was able to get ahold of the actual technology and build off of it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The fact that neither of them think to themselves for a moment, let's go find that piece of you that's still here and get rid of that, too, to me, is kind of an inexcusable plot hole. Unless it was James Cameron deliberately leaving in, you know, sequel possibility. If so, then I think it's cheap, but at least it's not inexcusable. Like, I understand the reason you do it. To me, though, it's a cheap way to, like, set us up for another sequel. I don't love it, but it's like. Because it just. It's so out of character for these incredibly. For this incredibly prepared woman and this incredibly methodical machine to not pick up on this moment where it's like, there's more. There's more of you here.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. No, that. That is. That is a big miss. I took it as. As kind of setting up for a sequel or just kind of a message to the audience is like, no matter what we think we're doing, we're kind of always back where we started.

Steve

Can you ever really change the future?

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, that wraps it up pretty nice. And then we've got just the scene of the road as Sarah Connor is talking over. And I think the last line is, you know, if a terminator can learn the value of human life. Maybe we can, too. Which. It's a little cheesy. But you know what? It. I love it. I. I love the. The message, everything about this movie. So that. That ends our Terminator.

Steve

What a ride this one really is. And it doesn't feel like, you know, it's over two hours long. It doesn't feel like it's over two hours long. You know, the way they handled exposition and. And. And sort of telling us things when they had to tell us because showing us would take too long. They do it well, like you mentioned earlier. Right. It's almost always one character talking to another. Very rarely there's some sort of voiceover from Sarah to give us a little insight. But generally speaking, the characters are very reasonably explaining things to each other in a way that the audience. Exactly. Doesn't feel forced, it doesn't feel weird, it doesn't feel cheap. Is well earned. Yeah. Overall, just obviously a fantastic movie and, you know, was a major part of the 90s, obviously. Especially the early 90s. So this was your pick. I'm gonna do my rating first. Go for it.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Yeah. So I'll be totally honest with you that when I. When you pick this movie and I'm like, oh, cool, we're doing Terminator 2. I knew we would at some point. Like, let's do it.

Nic

It.

Steve

I assumed going in, man, this is gonna be a five out of five for me. This movie's amazing. There's no way that it's not a five out of five. There were enough. I had enough issues with. With little. With plot holes and with some of the pacing and a little bit here and there and some. Yeah, just some stuff that I've mentioned throughout the episode today that it doesn't quite hit the five out of five for me. It's still a fantastic movie. It's still an incredibly fun ride. It gets a little too serious at times. I think there's elements of it that just kind of like, make it hard to enjoy the movie when it's kind of like trying to tell us so much about human nature in a lot of ways. But I'm giving it four and a half. It just takes a little dip. Like I said that leaving the arm in the facility at the end. It just doesn't sit right with me. And there's a handful of other points. The fact that the T1000 touched John and Sarah early in the film and then didn't really utilize that power it was then given. It seemed like a miss as well, so, yeah, so I'm not. Not. Not a five out of five for me, but a four and a half incredibly good rating. You know, that's where I'm gonna sit with my rating for it.

Nic

All right, well, yeah, that. That makes sense. And I. To me, you know, we had a discussion a little while back about certain movies being like perfect movies in our minds. To me, this movie is. Is perfect as far as. I don't really see almost any fat on the movie. Like, maybe you could trim three total minutes.

Steve

Right.

Nic

In different places. But it's. It's such a small amount, I think, dealing with the weight of this subject and this being a serious thing. I mean, being essentially like an anti war movie movie, it deals with it in such a unique way where it's not showing the direct horrors of. Of war, whatever, like those Vietnam movies. I like the. The politics of it. I think that the plot is well thought out and it's a cool progression from the first movie, especially with what we were talking about earlier where we weren't sure as an audience the first time watching this.

Steve

Right.

Nic

That the Schwarzenegger Terminator was the good guy.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And. And that added a lot of people of suspense. Also Edward Furlong in his first appearance. I didn't count it, but it seemed like he had pretty close to the most dialogue in this movie.

Steve

Oh, interesting.

Nic

He spoke probably at least as much as. As Linda Hamilton and Arnie did.

Steve

Sure.

Nic

And I was really impressed by that. And then, you know, he kind of did the Aerosmith Living on the Edge video and that was about it for him. But. But he was in.

Steve

I feel like he was in a John Grisham adaptation. Wasn't he in the Client? Or was it.

Nic

No, that was. That was Brad Renfro.

Steve

That's a Renfro.

Nic

He was in Detroit. Rock City, I think. Is it? Anyway. But I love this movie. There's so many memorable scenes. To me, this in really, really held up. And I watched it twice in a short period of time leading up to this. I would watch it again. I love this film. Five out of five for me.

Steve

Awesome. All right, so that is a nine and a half out of ten from the two Dads, I think. Perfectly reasonable score. And, you know, it's Generator two. Like, have you not seen Terminator two? Then go see it. Because it's damn well received seeing it. Have you not seen Terminator 2 in the last two years? Go watch it. It's fantastic. So absolutely easy to recommend and a movie that I think earned its place in Pop culture and, and maintains it totally.

Nic

Totally. Well, Steve, what do you have next for us?

Steve

All right, we are going to deal with another bit of time travel. Not exactly the way Terminator 2 deals with time travel. But we are going to go to a few years after this movie came out. We're gonna go to 1993. 3. And much in the same way that, you know, hey, we gotta. We needed to do an Eddie Murphy movie, we needed to do a Chevy Chase movie, and now we've done an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Who are we missing from the sort of pantheon of 80s and 90s superstars? Yeah, Sylvester Stallone. We have not done a Sly Stallone film yet. So let's do it. We're going to 1993. Sylvester Stallone's about to get frozen into cryo jail and be taken 30 something years in the future and we're going to watch him beat up Wesley Snap Snipes in Demolition Man.

Nic

Hell yeah. I can't wait. I've seen this one a bunch. I cannot wait to talk about it.

Steve

It's always a ton of fun. And you know, Snipes also, you know, not to put in the. Also a superstar of the era, movie stars, Sandra Bullock as well. We get an appearance from our buddy Benjamin Brat, who's been in a couple things we've watched so far. Yeah, fantastic movie. Can't wait to watch it. You get a little bit of Dennis Leary stand up comedy in it. You know, can't go wrong. Very early 90s all around. So yeah, next week we will talk about demolition now.

Nic

All right. Can't wait, man.

Steve

And yeah, if you, everybody listening. If you want to do, if you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoy our episodes, head over to Apple, head over to Spotify, throw us a five star review if you don't mind. It helps people find the show. If you want to send us an email and tell us what we're, you know, how we're doing, how I kept screwing up and calling Robert Patrick, Jason Patrick, go ahead. You can email us at the show Dads One Movie calm. That's the number two of the number one. This has been Terminator two. This has been two Dads one Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you guys next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.